Kids today… I hate ’em

Yes, I hate children – and like most people I hate – it’s because I’m jealous. I hate them because everything is better and easier and more fun now than when I grew up.

For one, their music. It’s way superior to the stuff I was forced to listen to in the 70s – and I do mean forced because before I got my nifty turntable, I walked around with a transistor radio plastered to my ear, suffering through endless replays of “Love Will Keep Us Together” just to make it to perhaps one decent Queen offering.

I’m not saying there wasn’t good music around then, but remember that for every Rolling Stones song, there was at least one Helen Reddy song as well.

Too steep a price to pay.

Plus, I LOVE hip hop and rap. I know, I can still listen to it now, but it’s not the same. When I go to the concerts at my age, I feel like someone trying to be cool, instead of someone who is cool.

And Eminem would have been a much more effective release for my teen angst than Anne Murray.

Of course, I could go on and on about technology… TiVo! Texting! Computers, for godsakes! I can’t even fathom the freedom to write a paper without using White-out, or spending half the night in a smoky library (yes, you could smoke anywhere back then) all night… missing “Soap” because you couldn’t record it… listening to “Muskrat Love”.

Yet, none of the above is the number one reason I hate kids today. That reason is:

The Green Bay Packers.

I grew up in suburban Chicago as the only Packer fan I knew in my entire town. I was teased and mocked and ridiculed mercilessly. We just weren’t very good. I had missed the 60s, and Bart Starr, the coach was no Bart Starr, the player. Even when things started looking up, and we acquired a pretty decent quarterback… His name was Lynn Dickey.

Are you kidding me? Lynn Dickey? Here is but one of many jokes I endured repeatedly:

“How are the Packers like a pregnant woman? Both left Dickey in too long.”

That classy gem, from my best friend’s dad.

Instead of getting to see my favorite players all over Sports Center, the NFL Network and shows like Letterman, I found them on TV like this:

But I still wore my John Brockington jersey to school proudly and defended my team fiercely.

So this morning — the one after the Packers’ sweet, resounding de-horning of their rival Vikings on Monday Night Football — when I witnessed a couple children skipping merrily to our suburban Chicago school in Green Bay gear, it actually brought a tear to my eye.

I’d like to say it was pride, or camaraderie, or sort of a “good for you, guys” emotion.

But it was abject jealousy, spiked with piles of pity for my own tortured football past.

Aaron Rodgers and iPods?!?

I hate kids today.